CQWW WPX Contest, SSB
Call: S51A
Operator(s): S55O S57L S56ZAB S56LZI S55Z S59MA
Station: S53APR
Class: M/S HP
QTH: Ljubljana
Operating Time (hrs): 45
Summary:
Band QSOs
------------
160: 147
80: 484
40: 358
20: 608
15: 75
10: 4
------------
Total: 1676 Prefixes = 689 Total Score = 2,424,591
Club: Slovenia Contest Club
Comments:
What a contest!
After a long time Andrej S56ZAB, Ziga S56LZI and I managed to put on air again
S53APR or S51A in a HF contest in a M/S setup. It was our first time HP from
this location and we wanted to see if there were any problems with the setup,
so we opted for 1 radio to see if there was anything wrong before going on a 2
radio setup. We tought we made all preparation possible and all, but...
Our setup was th6dxx on 12m an an Eco dipole for 40m rotary on 14m and dipoles
for 7, 3.5 and 1.8 on 12m. + 1 Bvg goin E-W
Using a Ts-950Sdx + Acom 2000A.
Proir the contest we checked all the things and decided to not go over 800W on
the rotary dipole, which is declared for only 1kW. Better safe than sorry,
HI..but ECO is ECO .... :)
So Jane S57L joined me 1h before the contest we had all set up and ready to
start. Started on 80m, but after 20 minutes the first failure...the dipole went
arching somewhere and we couldnt figure it out where. So we discared the band
after some tryes and went on 7. The bands were unusualy quiet...(we still didnt
knew what was going on). I tought that the conditions were just bad and that was
the cause, only later on sunday night we found out that the beverage was causing
the station to go deaf in RX. After we removed the beverage it went all to
normal ( only last 6h were worked like that :/ ) But, we learned something new,
so that's what it's all about. All the signals were weak and hard to read. I'm
apologising to all that we couldnt hear or were under the AGAIN AGAIN NUMBER
AGAIN sindrome that we had... The beverage caused something like 30-60 Db
Attenuation on the signals, so if we did get on someone's cq frq we apologise.
I spent 6 or more hours on the tower in the middle of the contest fixing all
that went wrong or didnt want to work properly. Ziga and Andrej fixed the
dipole for 40m. The dipole for 80 was finnaly fixed on sunday morning and we
operated for 2 days on 80m with a bad arching dipole and 150-300 W + the
station problem. Now that i look on it i'm surprised how we managed the 1400
qso that we had prior of solving the problem with the radio. I will just
congratulate the hams that stuck with patience to out deafness.
After the 80m failure there was a failure on the 40m dipole. Same problem. The
middle part was an ECO dipole center, declared for 3kW, but.....it didnt hold
even 1,5kW. So never again using ECO stuff at all. The only dipole working
fairly good was the 160m one.
After a saturday run on 40m to collect the EU mults, the ECO rotary dipole for
40m was fryed even with only 600-800W in (30 min of cq and the rate was quite
nice for a a dipole that high). Yey, i was stunned, but after a call from Jane
S57L we keep holding on with the remaining setup.
A thunderstorm made it to Ljubljana and i had to stop operating for 2h cuz of
the qrn and the danger of lightnings.
Dragan S55Z and Ales S59MA came to give a hand and offer some operating time
while i was on the tower trying to fix stuff.
On sunday afternoon after running 80m with realy bad signals Damjan S52W told
us that we were totaly deaf, and we finnaly managed to fix the problem. Yey,
the bands opened and it was like another world, but we lost most of the time.
Oh well, it will be for next time...(i can say that we lost something like 800
qso on all bands cuz of that)
The station and the Acom 2000A worked ok even with all the problems mentioned
above. The Acom is realy realy a pleasure to work with and you only need 3s to
be on another band with it. Realy awesome. Not a glitch and thanks the guys
from acom to the auto protection of the PA. otherwise it would've been realy
smoky in the shack.
Thanks again to all and it was a pleasure to work many OM and WWYC's. A special
thanks to the S53APR people and others that made it possible.
There were 1 bad point in the contest when an old bitter ham made a realy
stupid comment on our cq frq. But that is to be expected from his intellectual
greatness. :)
Next time hopefullx with a 4 el Quad and things that will work on other bands
(hoepfully :P )
S51A will come back with a better and working setup. We are allways learning.
Bostjan S55O
p.s. In a few days i'll try to put up some photos of the contest on my
homepage.
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